In the first part we discussed phase one of the homotoxicology paradigm that focused on excretion of metabolic acids and toxic by-products. In this article we will discuss the second phase. If the excretory pathways are (A) not working properly, or (B) being overwhelmed, then you will proceed into the next phase which is the reaction phase. In the reaction phase your body will react to the imbalanced excretion by inflaming your body or by allowing for infection.
- Just like with a burn barrel, if the trash is building up, then your body may decide to turn up the heat.
Let me state a very important point here. Your body will always try to survive! The fact that your body will try to inflame or infect during periods of increased excretion is simply a survival mechanism working as it is designed to work.
Let’s start with inflammation. If the trash pile grows too large and is overtaking your property you start the burn pile blazing. If metabolic acids and toxins can’t be excreted and are overtaking your body then “burning” them up by increasing inflammatory markers is one survival mechanism. A couple of things we look at as inflammatory markers are:
- highly sensitive C-reactive protein
- urinary nitrate levels
- serum uric acid
- markers of insulin resistance (insulin resistance is synonymous with inflammation, a topic to which we could devote an entire series of blog posts and videos)
In some cases the body may preferentially use another method in addition to the inflammatory process and that is allowing an immune response and allowing for infective organisms to take hold in your body to “eat up” the debris. Take for example the common conditions that people are familiar with such as candida infections and parasite infections. Now many patients and practitioners want to jump right to eradicating the candida, parasites, bacterial infections, etc…however, we must realize that you have created an environment for these pathogenic microorganisms to grow and thrive. If you give the fungus a dark, comfortable living space, or feed the parasite each day they don’t want to leave. You feed them, make them happy and comfortable and they are there to stay. When you change your internal environment, however, you can actually starve out the bad and feed the good and re-establish a healthy community of microorganisms.
We are able to look at a number of markers with simple urine and blood analysis to identify potential infection states. We look at:
- urinary indican – a marker of gut dysbiosis, an imbalance in the good versus bad bacteria
- complete blood count – we look not only at the white blood cell count, but also the breakdown of neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils and basophils
- secretory IgA – this is an important immunoglobulin that serves as your primary immune defense and acts as an antiseptic paint linking the digestive tract. (We currently give you instant access to our one-hour presentation on leaky gut that describes secretory IgA in greater detail when you subscribe to our newsletter below)
Ideally you will have your excretory pathways working properly. If they aren’t your next step will fall into the reaction phase category. In our next post we will discuss phase three of homotoxicology which is the deposition phase.
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